Bill O’Reilly famously declared back in the spring that if any Republican other than Trump won the nomination that the GOP could count on the white aggrieved voters that powered his campaign would stay home. They didn’t stay at home, of course, because Donald Trump executed a campaign of dog whistles, outright demeaning rhetoric and spectacular lying to pick at the scab that is this country’s white grievances.
Trump famously blamed trade deals and government complicity in the disappearance of the kind of good middle-class jobs at places like Bethlehem Steel or US Steel or American Motors or RCA that let you support a family right out of college. He told voters that he would bring these jobs back and that he would get rid of the trade deals, the regulations and the taxes that were holding back job creation in the US. On top of that, he blamed immigrants for taking jobs, used Obamacare as a proxy for poor people taking your stuff and impressively – for a guy born with a silver spoon in his mouth – made these people believe that he felt their pain.

But he did it reminding these white voters that they shouldn’t be treated in the way we treat our niggers, our spics, our people of whatever denigrated color or gender who are *supposed* to be working these low wage jobs. He did it by reminding them that *this* is why they are unhappy – that they are living with the treatment that we usually reserve for our lower class citizens and Making America Great Again was always about making sure that working class white people enjoyed the privilege of being a white person – whether they were working or not.

And a few of our white friends on the far left were working this white grievance thing too – pining away for their grassroots to rise up and immediately dismissing anyone who did not fit their ever-changing vision of political purity – their complaint was that they were Right and White and they are supposed to be listened to. It didn’t matter that most of them (at least according to my FB page) lifted not one damn grassroots finger for anyone. It didn’t matter to them that much of the anti-Hillary narrative was not only false, but originated from right-wing messengers.

So now we have this showy handwringing and finger pointing about appealing to working class white people. Certainly, Trump did that, and he did it with a combination of an appeal to white supremacy and outright lying to these voters. Because he did not have a plan to bring back these good paying jobs. He just promised some magic because that is what these voters wanted to hear. Because, let’s face it, if you have a $25.00/hour manufacturing job, you get to preserve your superiority over those black and brown people who just made all of the wrong choices to make minimum wage at jobs that disrepect them.

And of course, he lied to them. Those big plant manufacturing jobs are not coming back here unless the government throws money at investors and weakens unions and environmental protections. Some folks are looking expectantly at an infrastructure package that may be the first place to work with this administration. Except that this package may come as a privatization package (which will cost everyone more) and will likely come with provisions to undermine Davis-Bacon. Jobs are not coming back from Mexico unless it is worth the while of the owners and that means figuring out a way to subsidize their profits and weaken unions. And while their Southern brothers are delighted to work at manufacturing jobs that pay just above minimum wage, there is nothing about the government conspiring with owners to disappear your wages.

Draining the swamp isn’t going to happen, since the Congress didn’t change and Trump is busily tapping the same old wrong GOPers who are very skilled at the bait and switch – Isn’t it horrible that these black people have food stamps? While they are busily handing over the Treasury to their friends. Because as long as white people can internalize an image of themselves as being better than *those* people, the status quo power structure can do what they want. Newt Gingrich has floated the idea of a new House Un-American Committee – this time going after supposed ISIS supporters ). Ken Blackwell (yes, that Ken Blackwell) is back to make sure that only white straight people have any civil rights.

But hey, we all knew that all of the Trump campaign was a pack of lies. And the white working class has been buying the GOP lies about tax cuts, less regulation and somehow American business will save the day. Since 2000, we’ve lost more than 5M manufacturing jobs and since 2000, we drained our Treasury to provide tax cuts to wealthy people and businesses and the manufacturing job loss continued apace. But white folks with the same economic anxiety of black folks and brown folks facing the same destabilization have been routinely voting for GOP Representatives, Senators and Presidents who routinely bamboozle them on the possibility of the revitalizations of industries that haven’t gotten enough money to return in the last 30 years and won’t.

I’ve been listening to plenty of people who supported Trump tell reporters that he won’t be as bad as he was on the campaign trail. Meaning that the rationalizations have begun. The SPLC has documented more than 250 hateful incidents since Election Night and that doesn’t seem to be slowing down. The thing that the Trumpeters know about their voters? That they will be delighted with policy and actions that make sure that their narratives and prejudices about black and brown and non-straight people are reinforced and government actions make sure others are hurt. As long as they provide the bread and circuses that reinforce their grievances, we already know that these working class people will continue to side with and vote for the very power that keeps them economically destabilized. And we already know that they are completely on board with the suppression of votes from black and brown people.

The fix? Y’all got to come and get your boys (and girls). Your community needs to rise up and take responsibility for itself. This campaign was focused entirely on white supremacy and now the racist and misogynistic themes of Trump’s campaign are going to be SOP for this administration. And White folks have been voting for this bamboozlement since Ronald Reagan and white folks need to get in the mix and critically engage your people. The white working class has been complicit in the demise of middle class-sustaining work for decades and you need to get them a clue. There are no new or better-paying jobs at the end of the grievance rainbow — we have 30+ years of data on that. New or better-paying jobs might be at the end of a rainbow that abandons its supremacist nerve endings and joins forces with the black and brown and female and LGBTQ Americans who *are* out fighting the fight for a better economic future — reining in Wall Street, higher minimum wages, single payer health care, unions. You need to go out and get your boys woke — the corporatist system continues to count on your boys to make sure that the rest of us don’t get more than two steps forward. Because all of this white grievance is working hard at killing this nation.

Comments (89)

I especially like this part “Y’all got to come and get your boys (and girls). Your community needs to rise up and take responsibility for itself. This campaign was focused entirely on white supremacy and now the racist and misogynistic themes of Trump’s campaign are going to be SOP for this administration. And White folks have been voting for this bamboozlement since Ronald Reagan and white folks need to get in the mix and critically engage your people. The white working class has been complicit in the demise of middle class-sustaining work for decades and you need to get them a clue. There are no new or better-paying jobs at the end of the grievance rainbow — we have 30+ years of data on that.”

I’m trying with my friends and family though it is difficult to say the least. Can the DNC get on board and take some responsibility too?

The DNC can work on better voter turnout and even better voter engagement. But I do not know what message would have beaten “White People — I will fix all of your problems that this multi-cultural nation has made for you.” I don’t know how the DNC can fix people who will vote for their whiteness, rather than their futures.

Seriously.

Bernie had a good economic message, but Bernie facing this Congress wouldn’t have gotten any of that done. And that would make those same white people mad. And susceptible to the usual GOP bamboozlement.

One thing I really wish would happen would be for Dems to get aggressive and be on all of the news programs calling out all of the places where the GOP lies to its voters. Howard Dean did this for awhile, but too many of the Dems thought he was off the reservation. But this has to be a cadre of Dems willing to speak truth plainly and fearlessly like Elizabeth Warren. It has to me MORE than the usual liberal suspects, because that is how they get written off. And it has to be fierce and routine.

“…Dems to get aggressive and be on all of the news programs calling out all of the places where the GOP lies to its voters. …this has to be a cadre of Dems willing to speak truth plainly and fearlessly like Elizabeth Warren.”

I agree with all of that. We’ve been awfully differential to delicate feelings of Republicans and moderates who view all Democrats as unreasonable.

Puck, That kind of trolling is really beneath you. If you want to say that EVERY liberal criticism of Clinton (NAFTA, etc) isn’t the result of being duped by the GOP, then say it. I think that would be a legitimate point.

Jason, I am just echoing your analysis that the election was not a plebiscite on racism. And that Democrats need a new message focused on jobs. If we can’t deliver that message with all of the party behind us, Republicans will beat us again and again.

Well, that was a dumb statement on my part because it clearly was a plebiscite on racism for some X number of voters on both sides. Where I think we all agree is that making it a plebiscite on race and racism works better for Republicans than it does for Democrats.

Because Trump promised them that he was bringing back all of the jobs that went overseas. Let’s pretend that many of the companies that no longer power communities went out of business. What — exactly — is the message that beats that?

Exactly?

These same people oppose increases in minimum wages because they are told that jobs will be lost and their cheap meals will increase in price. Think about that. These are folks who won’t support economic stability for anyone but themselves and they’ve been buying a pig in a poke for more than 30 years.

Cassandra, I don’t think it is wrong to say that some Trump voters who earn minimum wage oppose increases in minimum wages. So “what is the message?” is a great question. What can you say to people who are so willing to hit themselves in the head with an economic hammer so long as POC appear to be hit slightly harder?

You know, I’m fine with piecing out blame across the board. But what you keep doing is blaming everyone except white people who we are supposed to understand and feel for. For some reason, they are above reproach and deserving of sympathy.

And the message to win back these white voters seems to be: Lie to them. It’s not like they know any better. (Add in a Bannon and an Alex Jones and they’ll be putty in our hands.)

What can you say to people who are so willing to hit themselves in the head with an economic hammer so long as POC appear to be hit slightly harder?

I don’t know the answer to that, but puck (and others) seem to think that better messaging is the cure, so I want to know what that messaging looks like. Because I don’t know how you can counter “I’ll fix it for white people and make it OK for POC to suffer more.”

But the people insisting on better messaging probably can answer this.

The entire Dem party is trying to figure out how to capture the voters it failed to win. You don’t get to conduct that discussion by demanding instant answers from me today as if that proves some kind of point.

I get that your contribution is to demonize “white grievance” as a purely cultural issue and to give up on jobs policy as an impossible promise. Point taken. The rest of the party probably isn’t going down that road.

Uh, yeaah. Because the only other alternative is different policies. And to just enough people, beating up on Muslims, Mexicans and ‘Murka Haters is the policy they like. So, yeah, until you come up with something superior to it, I’m going with better messaging.

And what is that better messaging? Because from where I sit, that messaging was about “I feel your pain and I will fix it because I am a whizbang businessman. And BTW, that political correctness BS is OVER.”

You don’t get to conduct that discussion by demanding instant answers from me today as if that proves some kind of point.

So you go nuthin’. As usual. Your contribution is to just repeat some of the stupid CW that the media talking heads are having on about without a single clue as to what might have been an effective counter. With a bunch of people who have been buying the GOP BS for years without ever getting closer to what they are looking for.

Messaging is about putting your own program in the best light. Hillary thought it was about putting the other guy’s program in the worst light.

We’re saying that instead of emphasizing how awful Trump was, she could have put a positive message out there for the people who DID switch from Obama to Trump. Several of us called even before the convention for a jobs program in the form of infrastructure investment — a positive message that would have countered Trump’s claims. Yes, she had a detailed plan and he has none — but how many people knew that when they weren’t being told in TV ads?

Heck, they could even have run both kinds of ads — they had the money. I’m starting to think their strategy was simply to say, “You can’t possibly vote for him!” Whatever we thought then or think now, it didn’t work.

Her campaign was not just about how awful Trump was. I watched I don’t know how many of her rallies and speeches that were available on line. She was absolutely talking about jobs and training and help with school and a giant infrastructure program and help for small businesses and investments in manufacturing and….the infrastructure investment was a feature of her First 100 Days proposal which was rolled out shortly after the convention. And she talked about it at rallies I saw up until November. There was at least one ad as well — one meant to run in OH or MI or both. I saw it on line, but it was clearly a made for TV ad.

What got reported was something else altogether. You could read about some of it in the NYTimes and other venues reporting on policy, but this was missing from the little TV I saw and mostly missing from NPR until close to the end of the campaign. When you have a campaign that has the media pointed at one candidate waiting for him to call people names and do something outrageous, the “fair and balance” part of the coverage just reports on you responding to that.

^^^ But cassandra, while that’s a legitimate point, it’s also irrelevant. By the time Trump had secured the nomination that media pattern was already well established. If you’re going to run against it, and you have the big bucks, then it’s your responsibility to find a way to change the game–or you don’t win.

The Clinton people never caught onto the fact that highlighting his many outrageous statements was actually giving him more free advertising with his base. They should have–they watched him do it to 13 Republicans.

Yes, she went to rallies and talked about specifics, and had it up on her website, and would have been a thoughtful, wonkish President … but she’s not because she didn’t find a way to break through the Trump rewriting of the media rules of campaigning in a reality-TV based world. That’s unfair, of course–politics should be about policies and competence–but it raises a legitimate question: if you couldn’t effectively beat the most unpopular Presidential nominee of all time, then why should anyone expect her to be able to negotiate successfully with world leaders?

@anonymous–Here’s one idea–a friend of mine pointed out that the GOP controls so many state legislatures that if they get one more they will be able to pass Constitutional amendments. If Trump scares you, if a Trump Supreme Court scares you, that should scare you more.

So my answer is to start taking back the country from the bottom up. People love to criticize the libertarians and greens for only showing up during Presidential election years, but that critique can more and more be made of the Democrats as well. They’ve got to find the message, identify the candidates, and target the States where the GOP should be weakest and start getting people elected to State legislatures. Otherwise, the weakness of the Dem bench at the national level (and it is quite weak) will only become more and more apparent.

but it raises a legitimate question: if you couldn’t effectively beat the most unpopular Presidential nominee of all time, then why should anyone expect her to be able to negotiate successfully with world leaders?

There’s nothing legitimate about that question. She did just this for years and won a great deal of praise for it. Just because she couldn’t overcome the lies and pandering of this guy doesn’t take away from that.

@cassandra: She did just this for years and won a great deal of praise for it.

There’s a perfectly well-reasoned argument that her policies as Sec State were a disaster, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. Nor did she have to face down Putin in a Syria-like crisis.

I’m sure you can find pundits to praise her tenure as SecState. I’m sure you can find apologists for our drone wars, too. “Winning great praise” is your equivalent for arguing that “if things were fair” she’d be President. Things are never fair at that level. Only results matter.

pandora is right: her popularity may well soar–Al Gore’s did. But she’s not President, so I suspect she will not see that as much of a consolation prize.

There’s a perfectly well-reasoned argument that her policies as Sec State were a disaster, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. Nor did she have to face down Putin in a Syria-like crisis.

Huh. 4 years worth of work (including getting an Iranian sanctions regime that got them to the table years later) and you got two things that didn’t get in the way of either her popularity or good work. That’s like saying we should judge Henry Kissinger on the fact that he wanted to bomb the Cubans at one point. I didn’t say she did a perfect job. But there is no denying she was popular and well thought of while Secretary of State.

Trump won the tools required to punish his scapegoats. His supporters won the expectation that he will use them.

This is the point. Listen to Trump supporters. They have specifics on the issues that mattered to them – they know he’ll deport undocumented workers (and harass legal ones, too! Bonus!); they know he’ll work to overturn Roe v Wade; they know he’s for Stop and Frisk and against BLM; they know he promised to Lock Her Up – which morphed into Execute Her at some rallies; They know – and are A-okay with – his choice of Pence (who will go after the LGBT community) and now Bannon (a full on racist, anti-semite, misogynist, homophobe). They voted for this – and so much more. They had specifics on all of these racist, misogynistic, bigoted things and not one detail on jobs. But hey, I’m supposed to buy into the jobs/economic reasoning. Nope. Sorry. Can’t do it. Jobs may have played a part, but it went hand in hand with everything I listed above. I can’t separate them.

Rallies and speeches available online? OMFG. Most people couldn’t give a flying fig about this stuff. The reason you advertise over and over again on TV with a really simple message is so that when people get in the voting booth, they think to themselves “Shady Katie McGinty.”

This election — no election — is ever won on the “issues” the way you are thinking of them. Nobody spends the time and effort to research those issues enough to vote intelligently on them. You saw the Trump ads, I presume. For most people, those ads WERE about issues. You’ll notice that imbeciles who couldn’t tell you how many justices are on the Supreme Court soberly said that’s why they voted for Trump despite his loathsomeness.

“That’s like saying we should judge Henry Kissinger on the fact that he wanted to bomb the Cubans at one point.”

uh…that’s hardly the only reason, but I DO judge Kissinger on the fact that he wanted to bomb the Cubans at one point, and that he did bomb the Laotians and Cambodians at other points. And I judge Hillary on the fact that she pals around with him.

“I’m really not sure what message people are thinking of when it comes to recruiting the blue collar workers.”

None so blind as those who refuse to see. The strength of your bubble is incredible. I’ve told it to you over and over again. You’re being either obtuse or stupid, and I no longer know which. People believe what they want to believe. You saw racism, so you think everyone saw racism.

You’ll apparently never understand that these people don’t think of themselves as racists. And while I say we need better messaging to those people, you basically write them off.

You are the reason the Democratic Party is a non-viable vehicle for reform.

“They had specifics on all of these racist, misogynistic, bigoted things and not one detail on jobs. But hey, I’m supposed to buy into the jobs/economic reasoning. Nope. Sorry. Can’t do it. Jobs may have played a part, but it went hand in hand with everything I listed above. I can’t separate them.”

Then don’t. The point isn’t to separate them, or ignore this stuff. It’s to think logically, which you have steadfastly refused to do. “They’re racists.” Yes, some of them are. But not all of them. Because you still haven’t explained the ones who voted Obama. I guarantee not a single one of them considers himself or herself a racist.

And if feeling superior is where you’re going to stop with this, get out of the way. You’re not leading, you’re not following, you’re sitting in the middle of the road ululating.

@cassandra–But there is no denying she was popular and well thought of while Secretary of State.

Are you really missing this point so badly? By whom was she “well thought of” and with how many was she “popular”?

Most Americans can’t even tell you when she stopped being SecState and Kerry took over. And while I can personally agree with you about the Iran deal, did you miss the fact that large percentages of the American public thought it was a mistake?

You insist on viewing this as if her qualifications for the job, and her intentions, should have automatically gotten her a fair hearing. Not only does politics NOT work that way, Secretary Clinton and the Democrats completely misread the way in which Trump redefined the game. Of course the media played along–they love a horserace. It was her campaign’s job to break through and feed the Donald his lunch. They thought they did that in the debates; they thought that was enough. They were very badly wrong.

I followed this election very little on TV, but I saw plenty of Hillary ads the last month. They were the same ads that had been playing for months — a sign right there that they thought they had this in the bag — and they alternated between LIfetime channel humanitarianism (the hugging-the-kids, etc.), apocalyptic ads about his character on the world stage, and tut-tutting about his foul mouth and foul brain (Our Children Are Watching!)

I’m sorry, maybe it’s the testosterone talking, but there’s very little there for the kind of union or ex-union workers who voted for Bernie and then Trump. There’s very little there for the Democrats who went into this election angry.

@pandora–Sure, but you need to find me voters who actually discussed or understood this.

Just as soon as you find me the voters who pulled the lever for her because of her stellar record as SecState.

You make my point for me. cassandra argues that she was a successful SecState. I personally don’t think so (with the exception of the Iran deal), but that’s not the point.

The point is that she never managed to sell that experience to the voters at large.

And, honestly, in one of those noir ironies, voters are far less likely today (when we’re engaged in imperial conflicts around the globe) to vote for President based on foreign policy than domestic promises. Not good, but there it is.

@Steve: She polled positively as SoS when she left, and her rating only went up once she went back into private life.

In retrospect, they should have worried more when those numbers came down so quickly with just a few months of Benghazi hearing bullshit. Kevin McCarthy got in trouble for telling the truth about that. By the time the primaries started she was polling underwater despite the way she aced that 11-hour hearing.

The striking thing about both her losing presidential campaigns is that they failed by being too cautious. Is it unfair to think the same problem might have plagued a Hillary administration?

No, I’m not. I’m pointing out the obvious, which keeps getting pushed aside to create a narrative of salt-of-the-earth blue collar workers voting their paychecks (or future paychecks). They didn’t vote their paychecks. They voted to screw over other people – even if it hurt their livelihood.

What’s the winning message? I’m thinking it’s gonna have to be a teensy bit racist to get back these voters.

So do the rest of your readers. People are coming here to find out what liberals are thinking, and all you can do is lament the racism. Go ahead, do that. But people are looking for more than you’re offering.

You just can’t get over the fact that lots of white people don’t care about the rest of us. This is politics in a democracy. That matters. Just because you can’t imagine how these people justify their racism doesn’t mean they can’t successfully do it.

Nobody ever won an election by appealing to the better angels of people’s nature. And certainly not this past one.

Steve, my point isn’t whether you or Cassandra approve of her as SOS, it’s that the majority of voters (you and Cassandra excluded) couldn’t tell you one damn thing about it.

The biggest threat here is how, and where, we’re getting our information and how firmly entrenched anti-intellectualism has become. Republicans fight against an educated society on a daily basis. Not sure how you win them back. Do we flirt with Climate Change denial – and other things like that?

“You just can’t get over the fact that lots of white people don’t care about the rest of us. This is politics in a democracy. That matters. Just because you can’t imagine how these people justify their racism doesn’t mean they can’t successfully do it.”

I never claimed this. I’ve been pointing it out.

And if we want to discuss bubbles… care to speculate on the demographic breakdown on DL?

Nobody spends the time and effort to research those issues enough to vote intelligently on them.

There’s no doubt, but I don’t have TV so this is how I see this stuff. And how I know she was talking about it, contra to your statement that she wasn’t talking about this stuff. There was at least one commercial (and there were probably more) — which probably did not play in the SE PA TV market. My point that you are working hard to ignore is that she did not run her campaign saying that instead of emphasizing how awful Trump was,. They did the stuff that was supposed to draw attention — a bus tour for the first 100 days, etc. That stuff did not get covered in the usual places, including NPR for the most part.

Just because you didn’t see it doesn’t mean that it didn’t exist or wasn’t pointed at specific audiences (the ad I did see was for Ohio). Clearly it didn’t work, but breaking through the Reality TV Show coverage of this campaign was going to be impossible for anyone who wasn’t working at the same level of drama.

“you are working hard to ignore is that she did not run her campaign saying that instead of emphasizing how awful Trump was,”

I’m sorry, but if you don’t have TV at all, you can’t really appreciate what most of us saw. I watched mostly the baseball playoffs, but I eaveswatch some of my wife’s shows (they’re on pretty loud). Those three types of ads, in heavy rotation, ran for at least six weeks. There was a rare PAC issues ad here and there, but not much. In broadcasting, you must hammer away at a simple message, and she did: Trump Bad.

“They did the stuff that was supposed to draw attention — a bus tour for the first 100 days, etc. That stuff did not get covered in the usual places, including NPR for the most part.”

That stuff is over. It’s political kabuki. It’s like superhero movies at this point — can’t someone come up with a new idea? Trump’s “new idea” was to ignore all of it. The political press loved it, because they hate writing the kabuki stories. And apparently Godwin’s Law prevented them from pointing out that not just the campaign styles, but strategies, borrow heavily from the National Socialists.

And of course you saw all of the ads. In all of the regions. There are LOTS of ad buys that unless you are specifically buying national time, those ads tend to be different. I don’t doubt that SE PA ads would be TRUMP BAD. I also don’t doubt that the jobs one was in good rotation in Ohio.

The kabuki is pointed at the press. Who used to cover that stuff, or at least they covered bus tours when Obama and Romney did it. Heck they covered Clinton when she was on her bus tour in Iowa. But once the press got their reality TV narrative, it is tough to get much “fair and balanced” out of it. Which has me back where I started and has you sticking around trying to convince me that your Clinton Derangement Syndrome is based in something you actually know.

I’m sorry, but I have indeed put forth the idea, the same one El Som and others argued for a year ago, that we needed a stronger infrastructure-jobs message. Not that it should have been the only message, but a more full-throated message than it was. Is that really so hard to concede?

“If people don’t hear them” means what it says. I know she was for these things, but apparently plenty of these guys didn’t. Or were those pipefitters booing Hillary Clinton because they’re racist?

A full 25 percent of voters didn’t make up their minds until October or later. Are you really so confident you know their thinking? Did they need until the last minute to decide whether they were racist, or were they just convincing themselves the racism wasn’t a deal-breaker?

And why would you bet the outcome on white people doing the right thing? White people are the ones who not only enslaved others but convinced themselves they were doing those people a favor by doing so. They have funny ideas of what constitutes the right thing.

At any rate, it is It is all water over the dam. I think we agree that the opposition must become more progressive if it’s to compete with fascist populism. We needn’t worry about elections for a long while to come, and there is a lot of frightening ground to cover before then.

If these people are as dangerous as I think, it’s going to be important to make plans fast. Paul Ryan is looking at privatizing Medicare as early as a planned Inauguration Day session of Congress. A million women is not going to be enough. We need at least a million men to join them.

I am a Democrat and a Liberal but the way everyone feels it’s ok to toss around “white people” and cast aspersions toward them is exactly why we lose their vote. Would these type of stereotypes, language or opinions be allowed for any other race or ethnic group? Should there be a similar article about the groups who did not vote which attacks their biases, prejudices, etc?
This entire discussion is based on a flawed premise. The Democrats lost because Hillary and her campaign did not inspire the electorate. The rest is excuses.

Would these type of stereotypes, language or opinions be allowed for any other race or ethnic group?

The people who voted for Trump certainly bought every bit of the racist, misogynist, bigoted, xenophobic and otherwise toxic BS thrown at them by Trump. And those who didn’t buy it, certainly noted that they were OK with it. So it isn’t stereotyping to either call them out on it OR to call them out for falling for more GOP bamboozlement.

EVERYONE has put forth this idea and some of put forth this idea early in the recession when money was cheapcheapcheap. Infrastructure development policy is certainly something she talked about and something that she ran ads on and even talked about in a debate. But unless she was going with the Free Ice Cream for Everyone strategy that Trump was working, why would you listen? Trump asked people to trust him that he would just fix everything that was wrong. No one — not even the press — asked him how he would get there, how he would pay for it or what it would take. Because all it would take is for you to trust that he knows how to do it. We talked about bringing back manufacturing which is exactly the Free Ice Cream that Trump sold these people, even though manufacturing on the scale that would cure these communities is not going to happen here. Because when it does come back, it is a handful of guys operating robots — not shifts of hundreds of people doing tough work.

The argument here — which you refuse to engage with — is that Trump won a bunch of voters who have been voting for this same bamboozlement from their GOP representatives for more than 30 years. This time the bamboozlement came with a Lee Atwater racial grievance tinge that outdid Atwater.

Dr. King has it here:

“If it may be said of the slavery era that the white man took the world and gave the Negro Jesus, then it may be said of the Reconstruction era that the southern aristocracy took the world and gave the poor white man Jim Crow. He gave him Jim Crow. And when his wrinkled stomach cried out for the food that his empty pockets could not provide, he ate Jim Crow, a psychological bird that told him that no matter how bad off he was, at least he was a white man, better than the black man. And he ate Jim Crow. And when his undernourished children cried out for the necessities that his low wages could not provide, he showed them the Jim Crow signs on the buses and in the stores, on the streets and in the public buildings. And his children, too, learned to feed upon Jim Crow, their last outpost of psychological oblivion.”

Comparative studies show that doctrines of white supremacy have had an even more powerful grip on American culture than in South Africa, and it’s no secret that the white population is declining. In a decade or two, whites are projected to be a minority of the work force, and not too much later, a minority of the population. The traditional conservative culture is also perceived as under attack by the successes of identity politics, regarded as the province of elites who have only contempt for the ”hard-working, patriotic, church-going [white] Americans with real family values” who see their familiar country as disappearing before their eyes.

The whole article is worth some time reading about, even though the lead paint anecdote doesn’t ring true to me.

I’ll just put this here. Everyone should read the whole thing. John Scalzi always hits the nail on the head.

If Trump’s administration indulges in the racism, sexism and religious and other bigotries that Trump and his people have already promised to engage in, we can assume it’s because his voters are just fine with that racism, sexism and religious and other bigotries — even if they claim to have voted for him for other reasons entirely. After all, Trump didn’t hide these things about himself, or try to sneak these plans in by a side door. They were in full view this entire time. If you vote for a bigot who has bigoted plans, you need to be aware of what that says about you, and your complicity in those plans.

The post linked to above explains and expands on this comment (I really have trouble believing this needs to be explained). Here are some excerpts:

Now, to bring that analogy back to the point at hand. This election, you had two major Presidential providers. One offered you the Stronger Together plan, and the other offered you the Make America Great Again plan. You chose the Make America Great Again plan. The thing is, the Make America Great Again has in its package active, institutionalized racism (also active, institutionalized sexism. And as it happens, active, institutionalized homophobia). And you know it does, because the people who bundled up the Make America Great Again package not only told you it was there, they made it one of the plan’s big selling points.

And you voted for it anyway.

So did you vote for racism?

You sure did.

And you say, but I’m not racist, and I would never treat people in a racist fashion, and I don’t like being called out as having done a racist thing.

And others say to you, okay, but you knew that when you signed up for the Make America Great Again plan that active, institutionalized racism was part of the package. Your vote supports racism. By voting, you endorsed a racist plan.

And you say, but I didn’t want that part. I wanted the other parts.

And others say to you, that’s fine, but you knew that to get the other parts, you had to sign on for the racism, too. And evidently you were okay with that.

And you say, no I’m not, I hate racism.

And others say to you, but apparently you like these other things more than you hate racism, because you agreed to the racism in order to get these other things.

And you say, well, the Stronger Together plan had horrible things in it too.

And others say to you, yes, and you didn’t vote for that, you voted for this. Which has racism in it. You voted for racism.

Jenr wanted to discuss emails days before the election, so I’ll take your and her words with a grain of salt. Meanwhile, Trump supporters (who should be happy and celebrating) are lashing out and hurting people.

See here (be sure to watch the video. The rage is astounding.) and here for the latest and greatest violence. Here’s a snippet of the Brooklyn incident:

The assailant was having dinner with a woman when he got into an argument about the president-elect with the two women at the table next to him after they expressed their disappointment about Trump’s victory, according to Leon.

The man asked Leon to throw the women out of the restaurant, but he refused, and instead moved the gent and his companion to a different table. The guy paid his check and exited the restaurant at 6:50 pm, but then dashed back in again — nearly knocking over a kid on his way — and slugged one of the ladies in the face, according to the manager.

“The guy came back almost running, and he started pushing some customer and the high-chair next to him with the baby because he couldn’t reach the girl,” Leon said. “Then he punched the girl.”

Leon ran after the brute, who began insisting that he was somebody important.

“You don’t know who I am!” he yelled, according to Leon.

Yeah, I know exactly who and what he is. And “spewing hate” is what Trump won on. It was the secret sauce.

I’m not refusing to engage it. It exists. Beyond that, you aren’t going to change them. But the great mass of them were that way before they voted Trump. We’re talking about the people who defected from Obama. That’s what cost the Democrats the election. You want to obsess about the people who will never vote for Democrats. I’m concentrating on those who previously voted for Obama but switched to Trump.

I hear the reddit Trumpers are busy “debunking” reports of hate crimes against minorities and Democratic voters, and they are circulating their own stories about threats or hate speech from anti-Trumpers.

As is my inclination, I suspect there are a lot of fake or exaggerated reports on both sides, as well as some deeply serious authentic incidents. I am not putting too much credence in uncorraborated Twitter reports.

A gay acquaintance of mine in Wilmington made such a Twitter report, and I believe it. Of course, he could have typed up the anonymous note he and his partner found on their front porch the day after the election, explaining to them that “faggots” were being watched and weren’t welcome. But then, you’d have to be some kind of incredible dick to suspect this many incidents would all be faked.

We’re talking about the same people. Who bought the Free Ice Cream + Racism lock stock and barrel. Because plenty of those folks who voted for Obama also voted for their local GOP horror show for years. The same years where their manufacturing jobs disappeared while they were sold a bill of goods about tax cuts being the cure. In this timeline, Obama is an abberation, but one who looked like he could manage the worst financial crisis of (many of) our lifetimes and who would end the Iraq horror show. A different landscape. But in the first Obama term there were majorities of Democrats in Congress, largely due to the grassroots work of Dean.

I’m not sure where I condemned everyone. I’d say I was uncomfortable with a very narrow conversation – one that skipped over racism, sexism and bigotry and went straight to wooing back white voters. I’d say we need to do both – and I keep hearing we need a message, but we are unable to come up with one (myself included). The reason for why we can’t put forth this message is worthy of discussion.

I am also, however, pointing out that for a group that “won” they sure are angry and violent – and that makes me question what really motivated them.

Scalzi addressed the “they voted for Obama” agument:

Since I see it out there, the “People who voted for Obama in 2012 voted for Trump in 2016, how can they be racist?” argument is not as strong as you might think it is. One, as noted above, one can easily vote for racism without being a racist in their day-to-day lives. Two, what, are you saying that people will vote pragmatically in what they perceive to be their own interests, which in one election year might mean voting for a black man, and in another voting for package deal that includes racism (and sexism, and homophobia) that they won’t feel the effect of? Shocked, shocked I am at this!

“are you saying that people will vote pragmatically in what they perceive to be their own interests, which in one election year might mean voting for a black man, and in another voting for package deal that includes racism (and sexism, and homophobia) that they won’t feel the effect of? Shocked, shocked I am at this!”

That’s what I’m saying. They voted for the racism not because they like racism, but because they thought the racist cared about their own interests. It simply wasn’t a deal-breaker for these people. Calling them racists won’t win them back.

“Jenr wanted to discuss emails days before the election, so I’ll take your and her words with a grain of salt.”

Bingo. That was my point before the election. If she loses whose fault will it be?

I voted for Hillary. However, I can’t understand why her supporters can’t pin the blame where it belongs.

Democrats have fallen in love with GOTV. They have forgotten persuasion.
First you need to persuade the voters. Despite what many in the Dem Party believe, persuasion is more important than GOTV. People who vote will vote. Incremental vote is added by the candidate and the campaign inspiring more people to vote. You can call, knock, etc all you want but it won’t make a difference if you have not persuaded and inspired those who intermittently vote.

Anonymous, we’re saying the same thing. What I’m doing is not skipping over/brushing aside/ignoring the racism, misogyny, bigotry to get to the wooing of white voters – voters that have, more times than not, voted against their economic interest in the name of screwing over people they blame – incorrectly – for their problems. We can discuss them, but it’s infuriating to have people blame black/brown people, millennials, etc. for not showing up and then saying we really need to understand white people. (And no, you aren’t doing this, but plenty of people – on this blog and elsewhere – are doing exactly this.)

I can’t think of a single message that would win out with a group that played a key role, decades ago, in destroying their union and the blue collared jobs. And given the responses here, I’m obviously not alone.

For the most part, they believe in trickle-down economics, etc. – and it isn’t until it blows up in their faces (2008) that they change their ways. And then after the Dems clean up the GOP mess, yet again, they go right back to the very policies that screw them over.

Jenr, your narrative was written before the election. Which is fine. Blame whoever you want. What strikes me the most is how Trump’s tactics worked – and how they worked against everyone who went up against him. And since flat-out lying, name-calling, racism, etc. was an acceptable way to run for office – that tactic would have worked against anyone. That’s what’s hitting home to me.

The voter suppression in Wisconsin undoubtedly made the difference there, and had a large impact in North Carolina as well.

One of the earmarks of a corrupt regime is a commitment to restrict the vote. By definition, it has not legitimately gained the consent of the governed, and therefore I am withholding my consent.

I have already made overnight plans for Inauguration Day. I encourage others to line up accommodations ASAP. If Congress indeed meets, I anticipate the opportunity to surround the Hill with people, the Congress meeting behind a cordon of military vehicles and SWAT personnel. Land of the free indeed.

Staying with friends so my only challenge will be getting down to the demonstration. I’ll walk in from the Beltway if I have to.

I’m sorry I’ve been so strident the last few days, but I’m trying to splash some cold water in the faces of all the despondent people. Is channeling grief into action one of the stages? Who cares? Works for me.

I really believe we have no time to lose. I will be visiting NYC soon to join the protests outside Trump Tower. The other night in Philly was interesting — there were quite a few older people who, like me, didn’t know what group had organized the event, they just thought it important to join the crowd.

It might seem futile or juvenile but it worked for the Tea Party. If there’s one thing we should have learned it’s that the press loves shiny objects. Putting lots of people on the streets is hard to ignore, and it obviously gets under their skin. Giuliani is already playing Himmler.

I spoke with her this morning. She said that it’s getting really scary. Her and a friend went to a party this weekend and were surrounded by a group of men who pushed and grabbed them. Luckily, other guys jumped in. Her phone was missing after the altercation and the group of guys who helped them held down the other guys and found her phone. She said she doesn’t plan to go out to parties anymore – she says the rallies are far safer environments for her and her female friends.

For that reason alone, I feel like there should be as many sympathetic men at these demonstrations as possible. I would like to see all the various protest movements get involved, to show that this won’t be tolerated by any part of the Democratic coalition. I strongly feel it should not be directed by the Party, because many of our allies mistrust Democrats almost as much as Republicans.

If this can be pulled off, the optics will be striking — a bunch of white men, surrounded by a rainbow coalition of the people and protected only by force of arms against a peaceful gathering.